The CRU graph. Note that it is calibrated in tenths of a degree Celsius and that even that tiny amount of warming started long before the late 20th century. The horizontal line is totally arbitrary, just a visual trick. The whole graph would be a horizontal line if it were calibrated in whole degrees -- thus showing ZERO warming

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Lizard Extinctions Blamed on Global Warming‏

Warmists were equally certain that the big frog die-off of a few years ago was due to global warming. They now admit that it was a fungus that caused the problem. Who knows what the real explanation will be this time? We old guys do have pesky memories, don't we? -- JR

When it comes to the hazards of global warming, it may turn out that lizards in burrows are the canaries in the coal mine.

In a study to be published Friday in the journal Science, an international team of biologists reports that in more than one-tenth of the places in Mexico where lizards flourished in 1975, the reptiles now cannot be found. The researchers predict that by 2080, about 40 percent of local lizard populations worldwide will have died off and 20 percent of lizard species will be extinct.

The reason for the huge die-off appears to be rising temperatures. But it isn't heat that is killing the lizards directly.

Instead, global warming appears to be lengthening the period of the day when lizards must seek shelter or risk fatal overheating. In the breeding season, that sheltering period is now so long that females of many species are unable to eat enough food to produce eggs and offspring.

Springs that start earlier and are warmer than they once were have been noted in many regions of the world in the past three decades. The new study suggests that the phenomenon may be far more important for the survival of some animals than peak summer temperatures, said Barry Sinervo, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California at Santa Cruz who headed the 26-person research team.

"It is as if something has really happened in world climate and the lizards are telling us that," he said.

The lizard findings also suggest that early stages of global warming may be more than a warning: They may have permanent consequences.

"Many of us have been worried about extinctions in the future," said Raymond B. Huey, a lizard physiologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, who wrote a commentary accompanying the study. "This paper shows that extinctions are already here. I think that will really be surprising to most biologists."

Lizards are cold-blooded. They depend on the environment for the heat necessary to run their bodies -- functions from muscle contraction to digestion and hearing. Some get heat by basking in the sun ("heliotherms"), others by waiting for the air to warm them up ("thermoconformers"). Different species have different optimal temperatures as well as different maximal temperatures they can tolerate.ad_icon

Several years ago, the research team visited 200 places in Mexico where in 1975 biologists had recorded the presence of basking lizards of the Sceloporus genus, 48 species in all. At 12 percent of the sites, the researchers found no lizards.

The places with none tended to be at southern latitudes and low elevations and in regions where four decades of weather data showed a marked increase in springtime temperatures. Species with lower optimal temperatures -- 90 to 95 degrees, on average -- were also more likely to have gone "locally extinct" than more heat-tolerant ones.

Sinervo hypothesized that springtimes were getting too hot for lizards. He fashioned artificial reptiles out of painted PVC pipe and electronic temperature gauges and put them out in the sun at two places in the Yucatan where the species Sceloporus serrifer survived and two places where it was extinct.

Where the lizards had died out, the average April day had 9.25 hours with temperatures so high that lizards of that species would have had to seek refuge in a cool spot to survive. Where they survived, there were far fewer "hours of restriction."

An analysis of more sites led the scientists to conclude that when Mexican Sceloporus lizards spent more than four daylight hours in burrows out of the sun, extinction was very likely. Females simply wouldn't have enough time to eat.

"The summer maximum [temperature] doesn't matter to them," Sinervo said. "Lizards are fully capable of crawling under a rock and not doing anything for a couple of months. The problem arises for females in the spring who are maximally cranking away for reproduction."

The researchers created a mathematical model linking a lizard's optimal temperature, the maximum outdoor temperature and the hours of restriction to a species' risk of extinction. It correctly "predicted" recent extinctions in South America, Europe, Australia and Africa.

Predictions for 2050 -- local extinction of 16 percent of the world's lizard populations and global extinction of 6 percent of lizard species -- appear unavoidable, the researchers wrote. The more dramatic 2080 die-offs might be avoided if global warming is slowed.

There must be some irony in holding a climate conference in Chicago, but I’m not sure what it is. Nevertheless, something close to eight hundred people have assembled at the Marriott on the Magnificent Mile to hear more than 70 scientists, economists and other experts opine on whether our globe is heating up. Naturally, since this is a skeptics’ event, most of them think not very much, as do the American people at this point.

Not surprisingly, however, the whole affair has been branded as corrupt by our colleagues at the Huffington Post who claimed the conference was bought and paid for by those nefarious fellows in the energy industry. (Wasn’t BP now supporting AGW? Oh, never mind.) The Heartland Institute, the conference organizers, emphatically deny this support. I leave it to you, dear reader, to decide the truth.

Unlike the HuffPo, I’m more interested in the science (not their long suit). And I have been getting an earful, spending most of my time in a conference room oddly name the “O’Hare” (it in no way resembles an airport), interviewing one scientist and expert after another for PJTV.

On the first day, two, especially, were notable — Lord Christopher Monckton and Richard Lindzen of MIT. I interviewed these gentlemen extensively practically back-to-back. Fortunately, neither of them knew my calculus grade in high school and I was able to slyly avoid being revealed as the scientific nincompoop that I am by sagely nodding my head at the appropriate moments. This was a good strategy because, I must say, I learned a lot.

I spoke first with Monckton who, I’m sure many readers know, has essentially become the verbal spokesman for the climate skeptic movement. Only allowed one witness to the Democrats’ four, ranking Republican Cong. Sensenbrenner chose Monckton, a British politician, not a scientist, to testify on the skeptics’ behalf before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

I asked Monckton why he thought he was chosen and he said it was because he was a politician and could withstand the hectoring from the majority members of the committee. Indeed I think he relished it. Outnumbered as he was, the Viscount evidently gave the Democrats a piece of his mind. I wish I had been there, because there is no question this man has an extraordinary command of the English language. For rhetoric alone, the Democrats should have been taking notes.

But that’s part of the point. This is no longer about science, if it ever was. Listening to Richard Lindzen lay out the whole history of “climate science” for me was fascinating, as he plotted the various motivations for the transition from the global cooling fears of the seventies (remember the Newsweek cover?) to the beginnings of the warming movement in the eighties.

During his interview, Monckton said that Lindzen’s latest research puts the final cap (not a felicitous word choice perhaps) on the global warming movement. Lindzen has studied the actual satellite temperature measurements, which reveal the heat escaping into the void, rather than being trapped in the “greenhouse” that “warmists” so assiduously insist is there.

Lindzen discusses these pesky results in his PJTV interview and I imagine will further reflect on them in his keynote speech, which PJTV will stream. Monckton has the final keynote, which he told me will center on the role the AGW movement played — or was intended to play — in the development of a global government through the UN.

What a relief it is the public is finally turning against this. And we have men like Monckton and Lindzen to thank for it, as well as many others at the conference. Steve McIntyre, whom I will be interviewing Monday, comes quickly to mind.

With any luck, in the near future, a few of our politicians may even wake up to this. But that may be pushing it. I have a suspicion most of them did even more poorly in calculus than I did.

As ever, the Warmists have only "ad hominem" arguments to bless themselves with

For the fourth time in the past three years scientists, economists and policymakers are gathering to explore both the causes and consequences of “climate change,” and the cost and effectiveness of currently proposed “remedies.” Also for the fourth time in the past three years, the Heartland Institute’s International Conference on Climate Change, which commences this Sunday, has been all but ignored by the mainstream media. And as reliable as the MSM have become in evading the event’s purpose, so have the alarmist media become in distorting it.

This year’s early entry appeared on Thursday, when former RFK Jr. Research Associate and onetime EPA “environmental justice advocate” Brendan DeMelle let the green games begin with this hysterically deluded posting at HuffPo.

According to DeMelle, the MSM’s “lack of interest” in what he brands a “non-event” stems not from liberal media bias, but rather “from the fact that this denial-a-palooza fest is dripping with oil money and represents a blatant industry effort to greenwash oil and coal while simultaneously attacking the credibility of climate scientists.”

How strikingly original – even the excruciatingly unclever “denial-a-palooza” was boosted from Greenpeace Research Director Kert Davies, who spread the term around like so much environment-friendly fertilizer during ICCC’s maiden voyage to NY City in 2008. And exactly which “climate scientists’” credibility is DeMelle so deeply concerned about? If perchance those paid to toe the green line for NASA, NOAA, CRU or the IPCC, then, as we’ve reported here, here, here, and here, respectively, there’s not much left of it standing on which to bear down upon. Needless to say, DeMelle’s lame attempt to defend the honor of those discredited entities by referencing last month’s laughable Lord Oxburgh Climategate whitewash falls dreadfully short of the mark.

If, on the other hand, he refers to those true experts who’ll be attending and presenting at next week’s ICCC IV, then I suspect he’d do well to join us in Chicago and learn firsthand that such intellectual ten-rounders are exactly what science is built upon, not blind adherence to single-minded “mainstream” opinion.

But DeMelle’s sparse scientific quiver quickly depleted, compelling him to continue his original thinking theme by reaching for an old familiar green arrow, tipped with the words: “For insight into the underlying aim of the Chicago denier conference, let us take a look at the funding sources for the sponsoring organizations.”

What followed was a lengthy litany of alleged contributions to various ICCC cosponsors from various organizations he coincidentally quotes the slogan-hijacked Kert Davies condemning as “hell-bent on keeping us addicted to dirty oil and coal.” The list was dominated by capitalist villains ExxonMobil, the Koch Foundations and the Scaife Foundations, and I have neither the time nor inclination to verify DeMelle’s figures for one simple reason: They’re irrelevant. Even if accurate to the penny – so what?

For starters, contrary to DeMelle’s implications, ICCC cosponsors don’t contribute dime one to the event. As Heartland Executive Vice President and Publisher Dan Miller explained to me earlier today, theirs is more an honorary title (much like that of freshly ordained Doctor of ecology and evolutionary biology Albert Gore) bestowed in recognition of their promotion of the conference to their members. Accordingly -- whosoever does or does not contribute money to these fabulous organizations that in fact do not in turn contribute money to the ICCC can’t possibly have any bearing on the conference’s objectivity and is therefore a nonissue.

As to ICCC’s sole financial sponsor, Heartland Institute itself, the total amount of funding it receives from all energy companies combined is no more than 5% of its budget, and, according to Dan, “probably much less.” Responding to DeMelle’s bogus insinuations to the contrary, Dan asserts: "Exxon last donated in 2006, and the amount was pocket change. I think the company bought a table for a dinner. The Heartland Institute hasn't received funding from Koch or Scaife for more than a decade."

So Brendan, show me the dripping oil money that’s keeping the oh-so-conscientious MSM at bay. And while you’re at it, perhaps you might explain why it is that the research funding sources of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) contrarians influence MSM newsworthiness decision-making while those of AGW alarmists apparently aren’t worth an editor’s second thought. When was the last time the NY Times, MSNBC or ABC News took a pass on an “unprecedented manmade global warming” story simply because its underlying research came from Britain’s Climate Research Unit (CRU), as is so often the case?

The same CRU whose director, Phil Jones, was discovered through Climategate-related documents (read my report here) to have received 55 endowments since 1990 from agencies ranging from the U.S. Department of Energy to NATO, worth a total of £13,718,547, or approximately $22.6 million. The same CRU whose list of potential funding sources in those same documents included four renewable energy agencies. Three -- the Carbon Trust, the Northern Energy Initiative, and the Energy Saving Trust -- are U.K.-based consultancy and funding specialists promoting "new energy" technologies with the goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The fourth -- Renewables North West -- is an American company promoting the expansion of solar, wind, and geothermal energy in the Pacific Northwest.

So while Heartland is as oil-free as acne wash, the CRU is dripping in green-fantasy-power-ooze money, which gives them an undeniably intrinsic financial interest in the promotion of AGW. And yet, MSM articles and reports (not to mention those of the hallowed IPCC) are awash with the manipulated data, charts, and projections generated by this blatantly biased organization. Is anyone really buying our HuffPo hero’s assertion that the “lack of press interest” in the Heartland conference is based primarily on the MSM’s scruples regarding funding conflicts?

Of course, contrary to alarmist-controlled media ranting, funding sources are hardly the measure of scientific theory eminence. Upon completing this entry, I pack for my fourth voyage to the land of climate sanity, from which I will again be reporting to you that which the MSM most certainly will not – climate considered as rational science rather than political instrumentation.

No doubt a few MSM types will ultimately acknowledge the goings on at the Chicago Marriott Magnificent Mile Hotel, if only to poke sophomoric fun at what they’ll ignorantly term the “denier’s conference.”

And while the effectively brainwashed “Carbon causes warming -- period” crowd chuckles in self-satisfied accord, AT readers will share in the brilliant yet refreshingly disparate opinions of these amazing luminaries to ponder and discuss. And learn.

Warmists always tell us that the high temperatures on Venus are the result of a strong Greenhouse effect but that is just speculation. The truth is that no-one so far understands the Venusian climate. Its reality defies all existing theories. The paper after the one below suggests that adiabatic effects may be a large part of the explanation for the high temperatures observed

A new Japanese space probe is poised to launch toward Venus today to help solve the enduring mysteries of the hellish, cloud-covered world, which has been often described as Earth's twin.

The Venus Climate Orbiter Akatsuki, which means "Dawn" in Japanese, is set to launch from Tanegashima Space Center in Japan today on a 2-year mission to study the weather and surface of Venus in unprecedented detail. Liftoff is set for 5:44 p.m. EDT today, though it will be early Tuesday morning local time at the launch site.

"Once we can explain the structure of Venus, we will be able to better understand Earth," said Akatsuki project scientist Takeshi Imamura in a statement released by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). "For example, we may discover the reasons that only Earth has been able to sustain oceans, and why only Earth is abundant in life."

Imamura has called Akatsuki "the world's first interplanetary probe that deserves to be called a meteorological satellite."

The probe carries five different cameras to study Venus' clouds as well as map the planet's weather and peer through its thick atmosphere to view the surface. It will join Europe's Venus Express already in orbit around the planet, and has scientists on that mission eager as well.

"Venus somehow transformed from a more Earth-like place to the alien place it is today, and what's fascinating about the world is figuring out how it diverges from the Earth and the history behind why that happened," said David Grinspoon, curator of astrobiology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and an interdisciplinary scientist on the Venus Express mission. "It could help us understand how things here might change."

Akatsuki will launch atop a Japanese H-2A rocket and won't be alone during blastoff. JAXA is launching several smaller satellite experiments with the mission, including an ambitious solar sail designed to tag along on the trip to Venus. [More on Japan's solar sail mission.]

Secret of Venus' super-rotation

One of Akatsuki's main goals is to understand what may be the biggest mystery of Venus — the "super-rotation" of its atmosphere, where violent winds drive storms and clouds around that planet at speeds of more than 220 mph (360 kph), some 60 times faster than the planet itself rotates.

"There's no consistent model of Venus's climate that can reproduce this super-rotation," Grinspoon explained. "We've been taking general circulation models from Earth and tweaking them for Venus, and they don't work. By understanding better how climate works on Venus, it will make us better understand how climate change on Earth works."

Akatsuki will monitor Venus in the infrared to learn more about the atmosphere and surface under the murky clouds, hopefully revealing what mechanism is driving this super-rotation.

But Imamura has said his team is fully prepared to be surprised by unexpected findings which may uncover more questions than answers.

"We may be pleasantly surprised by the emergence of a greater mystery than super-rotation," he said.

Impossible lightning

The Venus Express spacecraft the European Space Agency launched in 2005 intriguingly found evidence of lightning on the planet, even though none should exist.

"What creates lightning on Earth is water droplets and ice crystals in clouds, which leads to the separation of electric charges that lightning needs, and you don't have that kind of weather on Venus," Grinspoon said.

But Venus is covered with thick clouds of sulfuric acid.

"Maybe there's a kind of weather we haven't seen yet on Venus that causes this lightning, or maybe how we're wrong about the kinds of conditions needed to make lightning," he added.

Akatsuki should help capture vital clues about this lightning with a camera dedicated to photographing it.

Weird stripes on Venus

There are unusual stripes in the upper clouds of Venus dubbed "blue absorbers" because they strongly absorb light in the blue and ultraviolet wavelengths. These are soaking up a huge amount of energy — nearly half of the total solar energy the planet absorbs. As such, they seem to play a major role in keeping Venus as hellish as it is, with surface temperatures of more than 860 degrees F (460 degrees C).

"We don't know what they are," Grinspoon said. "They're probably some kind of sulfur compound, but we haven't been able to nail it down yet."

Akatsuki's ultraviolet imager will focus on inspecting these enigmas.

A bright mystery, and volcanoes?

In 2007, two-thirds of the Venus's southern hemisphere was suddenly covered in a bright haze that disappeared a few days later. It remains uncertain what started this amazing transformation.

"We think it's some kind of dynamic overturning of the atmosphere that injected sulfur dioxide above the clouds briefly, but we're not sure," Grinspoon said.

The clouds may be fueled from sulfur spewed up by volcanoes on Venus, as Grinspoon and his colleagues ran calculations that suggest the sulfur seen in the atmosphere should dissipate after 10 to 30 million years if not otherwise refueled. However, Venus's clouds are so thick that no one has actually seen any volcanoes yet.

"Venus guards her secrets rather tightly, and under forbidding conditions," he said. The scientists behind Akatsuki hope its cameras might be able to spot active volcanoes under her veil.

Double-teaming Venus

When Akatsuki reaches Venus in December, it will find Venus Express there as a partner in orbit, complementing it in a number of ways.

For instance, they will take different orbits over the planet — while Venus Express has an orbit that takes it over both poles, enabling it to see virtually the entire world, Akatsuki will fly an elliptical orbit around the equator, allowing it to concentrate on parts of the atmosphere for hours at a time. The orbit will bring Akatsuki as close as 186 miles (300 km) to Venus and as far away as 49,709 miles (80,000 km).

"Venus Express and Akatsuki are like sister satellites, and a very good cooperative relationship has been built as we have progressed in our missions," Imamura said.

Imamura said that while Venus Express primarily studies the chemical composition of Venus' atmosphere, Akatsuki will focus on the fluid motion of the planet's weather. Together, the two spacecraft should reveal a comprehensive picture of how the planet works.

"If there's one thing we've been learning about Venus, it's that it's a really dynamic planet that's very changeable, so we need as much long-term data as we can to build up an understanding of how things change over time," Grinspoon said. "Having Akatsuki there should help capture more vital clues to understanding Venus's mysteries."

Most conventional interpretations and models, such as those of the IPCC, consider only one component of heat transfer- radiation- to create a flat earth radiation budget of the atmosphere, ocean, and land masses, and do not adequately address the impact of e.g. convection and circulation on a rotating sphere. In contrast, the Sorokhtin et al adiabatic theory considers earth as an open, dissipative system that can be described by non-linear equations of mathematical physics, taking into account the formation of stable thermodynamic structures in each compartment, between compartments, and ruled by strong negative feedbacks (e.g. convection, water cycles, clouds).

They devised a model based on well-established relationships among physical ﬁelds describing the mass and heat transfer in the atmosphere and subsequently published the paper Cooling of Atmosphere Due to CO2 in Energy Sources, Part A: Recovery, Utilization, and Environmental Effects (2008), excerpted below.

This paper and all of the other derivations of atmospheric physics noted in the list above come to essentially the same conclusion: Doubling of CO2 levels will cause insignificant changes in global temperature (<1°C). This prediction is in much better agreement with the five peer-reviewed empirical satellite studies than any of the IPCC models or predictions from conventional greenhouse gas theory.

Basic formulas describe among others, the heat transfer in the atmosphere by radiation, the atmospheric pressure and air density change with elevation, the effect of the angle of the Earth's precession and the adiabatic process. For the adiabatic process the formula considers the partial pressures and speciﬁc heats of the gases forming the atmosphere, an adiabatic constant and corrective coefficients for the heating caused by water condensation in the wet atmosphere and for the absorption of infrared radiation by the atmosphere. The adiabatic constant and the heat coefficients are estimated using actual experimental data.

This adiabatic model was verified, with a precision of 0.1%, by comparing the results obtained for the temperature distribution in the troposphere of the Earth with the standard model used worldwide for the calibration of the aircraft gauges and which is based on experimental data. The model was additionally verified with a precision of 0.5%–1.0% for elevations up to 40 km, by comparing the results with the measured temperature distribution in the dense troposphere of Venus consisting mainly of CO2.

Introduction

Traditional anthropogenic theory of currently observed global warming states that release of carbon dioxide into atmosphere (partially as a result of utilization of fossil fuels) leads to an increase in atmospheric temperature because the molecules of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) absorb the infrared radiation from the Earth’s surface. This statement is based on the Arrhenius hypothesis, which was never verified (Arrhenius, 1896).

The proponents of this theory take into consideration only one component of heat transfer in atmosphere, i.e., radiation. Yet, in the dense Earth’s troposphere with the pressure p > 0:2 atm, the heat from the Earth's surface is mostly transferred by convection (Sorokhtin, 2001a). According to our estimates, convection accounts for 67%, water vapor condensation in troposphere accounts for 25%, and radiation accounts for about 8% of the total heat transfer from the Earth’s surface to troposphere. [IPCC models rely almost entirely upon the radiation budget, which according to the authors accounts for only 8% of atmospheric heat transfer-maybe that's why Trenberth et al can't find the "missing" heat- added comments]

Conclusion

Thus, convection is the dominant process of heat transfer in troposphere, and all the theories of Earth’s atmospheric heating (or cooling) first of all must consider this process of heat (energy) mass redistribution in atmosphere (Sorokhtin, 2001a, 2001b; Khilyuk and Chilingar, 2003, 2004).

Accumulation of large amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leads to the cooling, and not to warming of climate, as the proponents of traditional anthropogenic global warming theory believe (Aeschbach-Hertig, 2006). This conclusion has a simple physical explanation: when the infrared radiation is absorbed by the molecules of greenhouse gases, its energy is transformed into thermal expansion of air, which causes convective ﬂuxes of air masses restoring the adiabatic distribution of temperature in the troposphere. Our estimates show that release of small amounts of carbon dioxide (several hundreds ppm), which are typical for the scope of anthropogenic emission, does not influence the global temperature of Earth’s atmosphere.

The Sorokhtin et al model was based on the observation that in the troposphere (the lower and denser layer of the atmosphere, with pressures greater than 0.2 atm) the heat transfer is mostly by convection and the temperature distribution is close to adiabatic. The reasoning for this is that the air masses expand and cool while rising and compress and heat while descending.

The main conclusions of this work are:

1. Convection accounts for approximately 67% of the total amount of heat transfer from the Earth's surface to the troposphere, the condensation of water vapour for 25% and radiation accounts for only 8%. As the heat transfer in the troposphere occurs mostly by convection, accumulation of CO2 in the troposphere intensifies the convective process of heat and mass transfer, because of the intense absorption of infrared radiation, and leads to subsequent cooling and not warming as commonly believed.

2. The analysis indicates that the average surface temperature of the earth is determined by the solar constant, the precession angle of the planet, the mass (pressure) of the atmosphere, and the specific heat of the atmospheric mixture of gases.

3. If the nitrogen–oxygen atmosphere of the earth would be replaced by a CO2 atmosphere with the same pressure of 1 atm, then the average near-surface temperature would decrease by approximately 2.5 °C and not increase as commonly assumed.

4. The opposite will happen by analogy if the CO2 atmosphere of Venus would be replaced by a nitrogen–oxygen atmosphere at a pressure of 90.9 atm. The average near-surface temperature would increase from 462 °C to 657 °C. This is explained easily by observing how the results of the derived formulas are affected, considering that the molecular weight of CO2 is about 1.5 times greater and its speciﬁc heat 1.2 times smaller than those of the earth's air.

5. If the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere increases from 0.035% to its double value of 0.070%, the atmospheric pressure will increase slightly (by 0.00015 atm). Consequently the temperature at sea level will increase by about 0.01°C and the increase in temperature at an altitude of 10 km will be less than 0.03°C. These amounts are negligible compared to the natural temporal ﬂuctuations of the global temperature.

6. In evaluating the above consequences of the doubling of the CO2, one has to consider the dissolution of CO2 in oceanic water and also that, together with carbon, a part of atmospheric oxygen is also transferred into carbonates. Therefore instead of a slight increase in the atmospheric pressure one should expect a slight decrease with a corresponding insigniﬁcant climate cooling.

Sen. Bill Nelson claims that “The ultimate answer to America’s energy needs lies not in oil, but in the rapid development of alternative fuels” (“Halt offshore exploration,” May 13).

How in the world does Mr. Nelson divine this alleged fact? Does he have expert insight into the full costs and benefits of developing and producing non-fossil fuels? Has he displayed a unique talent at predicting changes in the technologies that are used to extract petroleum? Hardly.

After a short stint in the Army, Mr. Nelson spent all of one year (1970) in the private sector (where he practiced law). From 1971 until today he has worked exclusively in politics. He has neither experience in the energy industry nor any record of entrepreneurship. For nearly 40 years – well over half of his life – he’s devoted his career to spending other people’s money. In short, he has no basis for making this claim.

Mr. Nelson’s “answer to America’s energy needs” deserves no more attention than does any such prophecy issued by a Ouija board or by a witch doctor reading the entrails of a rooster.

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Background

Context for the minute average temperature change recorded: At any given time surface air temperatures around the world range over about 100°C. Even in the same place they can vary by nearly that much seasonally and as much as 30°C or more in a day. A minute rise in average temperature in that context is trivial if it is not meaningless altogether. Scientists are Warmists for the money it brings in, not because of the facts

This site is in favour of things that ARE good for the environment. That the usual Greenie causes are good for the environment is however disputed. Greenie policies can in fact be actively bad for the environment -- as with biofuels, for instance

This Blog by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.), writing from Brisbane, Australia.

I am the most complete atheist you can imagine. I don't believe in Karl Marx, Jesus Christ or global warming. And I also don't believe in the unhealthiness of salt, sugar and fat. How skeptical can you get? If sugar is bad we are all dead

And when it comes to "climate change", I know where the skeletons are buried

Warmists depend heavily on ice cores for their figures about the atmosphere of the past. But measuring the deep past through ice cores is a very shaky enterprise, which almost certainly takes insufficient account of compression effects. The apparently stable CO2 level of 280ppm during the Holocene could in fact be entirely an artifact of compression at the deeper levels of the ice cores. . Perhaps the gas content of an ice layer approaches a low asymptote under pressure. Dr Zbigniew Jaworowski's criticisms of the assumed reliability of ice core measurements are of course well known. And he studied them for over 30 years.

The world's first "Green" party was the Nazi party -- and Greenies are just as Fascist today in their endeavours to dictate to us all and in their attempts to suppress dissent from their claims.

Was Pope Urban VIII the first Warmist? Below we see him refusing to look through Galileo's telescope. People tend to refuse to consider evidence— if what they might discover contradicts what they believe.

Warmism is a powerful religion that aims to control most of our lives. It is nearly as powerful as the Catholic Church once was

Believing in global warming has become a sign of virtue. Strange in a skeptical era. There is clearly a need for faith

Climate change is the religion of people who think they're too smart for religion

Some advice from the Buddha that the Green/Left would do well to think about: "Three things cannot be long hidden: The Sun, The Moon and The Truth"

Leftists have faith that warming will come back some day. And they mock Christians for believing in the second coming of Christ! They obviously need religion

Global warming has in fact been a religious doctrine for over a century. Even Charles Taze Russell, the founder of Jehovah's Witnesses, believed in it

A rosary for the church of global warming (Formerly the Catholic church): "Hail warming, full of grace, blessed art thou among climates and blessed is the fruit of thy womb panic"

Pope Francis is to the Catholic church what Obama is to America -- a mistake, a fool and a wrecker

Global warming is the predominant Leftist lie of the 21st century. No other lie is so influential. The runner up lie is: "Islam is a religion of peace". Both are rankly absurd.

"When it comes to alarmism, we’re all deniers; when it comes to climate change, none of us are" -- Dick Lindzen

The EPA does everything it can get away with to shaft America and Americans

Cromwell's famous plea: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken" was ignored by those to whom it was addressed -- to their great woe. Warmists too will not consider that they may be wrong ..... "Bowels" was a metaphor for compassion in those days

Inorganic Origin of Petroleum: "The theory of Inorganic Origin of Petroleum (synonyms: abiogenic, abiotic, abyssal, endogenous, juvenile, mineral, primordial) states that petroleum and natural gas was formed by non-biological processes deep in the Earth, crust and mantle. This contradicts the traditional view that the oil would be a "fossil fuel" produced by remnants of ancient organisms. Oil is a hydrocarbon mixture in which a major constituent is methane CH4 (a molecule composed of one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). Occurrence of methane is common in Earth's interior and in space. The inorganic theory contrasts with the ideas that posit exhaustion of oil (Peak Oil), which assumes that the oil would be formed from biological processes and thus would occur only in small quantities and sets, tending to exhaust. Some oil drilling now goes 7 miles down, miles below any fossil layers

As the Italian chemist Primo Levi reflected in Auschwitz, carbon is ‘the only element that can bind itself in long stable chains without a great expense of energy, and for life on Earth (the only one we know so far) precisely long chains are required. Therefore carbon is the key element of living substance.’ The chemistry of carbon (2) gives it a unique versatility, not just in the artificial world, but also, and above all, in the animal, vegetable and – speak it loud! – human kingdoms.

David Archibald: "The more carbon dioxide we can put into the atmosphere, the better life on Earth will be for human beings and all other living things."

WISDOM:

"It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong." --- Richard P. Feynman.
Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough - Michael Crichton

"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman

"The desire to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it" -- H L Mencken

'Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action' -- Goethe

“Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” -- Voltaire

Lord Salisbury: "No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by experience of life as that you should never trust experts. If you believe doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe soldiers, nothing is safe."

Calvin Coolidge said, "If you see 10 troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you." He could have been talking about Warmists.

Some advice from long ago for Warmists: "If ifs and ans were pots and pans,there'd be no room for tinkers". It's a nursery rhyme harking back to Middle English times when "an" could mean "if". Tinkers were semi-skilled itinerant workers who fixed holes and handles in pots and pans -- which were valuable household items for most of our history. Warmists are very big on "ifs", mays", "might" etc. But all sorts of things "may" happen, including global cooling

Bertrand Russell knew about consensus: "The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.”

There goes another beautiful theory about to be murdered by a brutal gang of facts. - Duc de La Rochefoucauld, French writer and moralist (1613-1680)

"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitate" -- William of Occam

Was Paracelsus a 16th century libertarian? His motto was: "Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest" which means "Let no man belong to another who can belong to himself." He was certainly a rebel in his rejection of authority and his reliance on observable facts and is as such one of the founders of modern medicine

"In science, refuting an accepted belief is celebrated as an advance in knowledge; in religion it is condemned as heresy". (Bob Parks, Physics, U of Maryland). No prizes for guessing how global warming skepticism is normally responded to.

"Almost all professors of the arts and sciences are egregiously conceited, and derive their happiness from their conceit" -- Erasmus

"The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, scepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the one unpardonable sin." -- Thomas H. Huxley

Time was, people warning the world "Repent - the end is nigh!" were snickered at as fruitcakes. Now they own the media and run the schools.

"One of the sources of the Fascist movement is the desire to avoid a too-rational and too-comfortable world" -- George Orwell, 1943 in Can Socialists Be Happy?

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts -- Bertrand Russell

“Affordable energy in ample quantities is the lifeblood of the industrial societies and a prerequisite for the economic development of the others.” -- John P. Holdren, Science Adviser to President Obama. Published in Science 9 February 2001

The closer science looks at the real world processes involved in climate regulation the more absurd the IPCC's computer driven fairy tale appears. Instead of blithely modeling climate based on hunches and suppositions, climate scientists would be better off abandoning their ivory towers and actually measuring what happens in the real world.' -- Doug L Hoffman

Something no Warmist could take on board: "Knuth once warned a correspondent, "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it." -- Prof. Donald Knuth, whom some regard as the world's smartest man

"To be green is to be irrational, misanthropic and morally defective. They are the barbarians at the gate we have to stand against" -- Rich Kozlovich

“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.“ – Timothy Wirth,
President of the UN Foundation

“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” – Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)

Leftists generally and Warmists in particular very commonly ascribe disagreement with their ideas to their opponent being "in the pay" of someone else, usually "Big Oil", without troubling themselves to provide any proof of that assertion. They are so certain that they are right that that seems to be the only reasonable explanation for opposition to them. They thus reveal themselves as the ultimate bigots -- people with fixed and rigid ideas.

ABOUT:

This is one of TWO skeptical blogs that I update daily. During my research career as a social scientist, I was appalled at how much writing in my field was scientifically lacking -- and I often said so in detail in the many academic journal articles I had published in that field. I eventually gave up social science research, however, because no data ever seemed to change the views of its practitioners. I hoped that such obtuseness was confined to the social scientists but now that I have shifted my attention to health related science and climate related science, I find the same impermeability to facts and logic. Hence this blog and my FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC blog. I may add that I did not come to either health or environmental research entirely without credentials. I had several academic papers published in both fields during my social science research career

Update: After 8 years of confronting the frankly childish standard of reasoning that pervades the medical journals, I have given up. I have put the blog into hibernation. In extreme cases I may put up here some of the more egregious examples of medical "wisdom" that I encounter. Greenies and food freaks seem to be largely coterminous. My regular bacon & egg breakfasts would certainly offend both -- if only because of the resultant methane output

Since my academic background is in the social sciences, it is reasonable to ask what a social scientist is doing talking about global warming. My view is that my expertise is the most relevant of all. It seems clear to me from what you will see on this blog that belief in global warming is very poorly explained by history, chemistry, physics or statistics.

Warmism is prophecy, not science. Science cannot foretell the future. Science can make very accurate predictions based on known regularities in nature (e.g. predicting the orbits of the inner planets) but Warmism is the exact opposite of that. It predicts a DEPARTURE from the known regularities of nature. If we go by the regularities of nature, we are on the brink of an ice age.

And from a philosophy of science viewpoint, far from being "the science", Warmism is not even an attempt at a factual statement, let alone being science. It is not a meaningful statement about the world. Why? Because it is unfalsifiable -- making it a religious, not a scientific statement. To be a scientific statement, there would have to be some conceivable event that disproved it -- but there appears to be none. ANY event is hailed by Warmists as proving their contentions. Only if Warmists were able to specify some fact or event that would disprove their theory would it have any claim to being a scientific statement. So the explanation for Warmist beliefs has to be primarily a psychological and political one -- which makes it my field

And, after all, Al Gore's academic qualifications are in social science also -- albeit very pissant qualifications.

A "geriatric" revolt: The scientists who reject Warmism tend to be OLD! Your present blogger is one of those. There are tremendous pressures to conformity in academe and the generally Leftist orientation of academe tends to pressure everyone within it to agree to ideas that suit the Left. And Warmism is certainly one of those ideas. So old guys are the only ones who can AFFORD to declare the Warmists to be unclothed. They either have their careers well-established (with tenure) or have reached financial independence (retirement) and so can afford to call it like they see it. In general, seniors in society today are not remotely as helpful to younger people as they once were. But their opposition to the Warmist hysteria will one day show that seniors are not completely irrelevant after all. Experience does count (we have seen many such hysterias in the past and we have a broader base of knowledge to call on) and our independence is certainly an enormous strength. Some of us are already dead. (Reid Bryson and John Daly are particularly mourned) and some of us are very senior indeed (e.g. Bill Gray and Vince Gray) but the revolt we have fostered is ever growing so we have not labored in vain.

Jimmy Carter Classic Quote from 1977: "Because we are now running out of gas and oil, we must prepare quickly for a third change, to strict conservation and to the use of coal and permanent renewable energy sources, like solar power.

SOME POINTS TO PONDER:

Today’s environmental movement is the current manifestation of the totalitarian impulse. It is ironic that the same people who condemn the black or brown shirts of the pre WW2 period are blind to the current manifestation simply because the shirts are green.

Climate is just the sum of weather. So if you cannot forecast the weather a month in advance, you will not be able to forecast the climate 50 years in advance. And official meteorologists such as Britain's Met Office and Australia's BOM, are very poor forecasters of weather. The Met office has in fact given up on making seasonal forecasts because they have so often got such forecasts embarrassingly wrong. Their global-warming-powered "models" just did not deliver

Hearing a Government Funded Scientist say let me tell you the truth, is like hearing a Used Car Salesman saying let me tell you the truth.

A strange Green/Left conceit: They seem to think (e.g. here) that no-one should spend money opposing them and that conservative donors must not support the election campaigns of Congressmen they agree with

David Brower, founder Sierra Club: “Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license"

After three exceptionally cold winters in the Northern hemisphere, the Warmists are chanting: "Warming causes cold". Even if we give that a pass for logic, it still inspires the question: "Well, what are we worried about"? Cold is not going to melt the icecaps is it?"

It's a central (but unproven) assumption of the Warmist "models" that clouds cause warming. Odd that it seems to cool the temperature down when clouds appear overhead!

To make out that the essentially trivial warming of the last 150 years poses some sort of threat, Warmists postulate positive feedbacks that might cut in to make the warming accelerate in the near future. Amid their theories about feedbacks, however, they ignore the one feedback that is no theory: The reaction of plants to CO2. Plants gobble up CO2 and the more CO2 there is the more plants will flourish and hence gobble up yet more CO2. And the increasing crop yields of recent years show that plantlife is already flourishing more. The recent rise in CO2 will therefore soon be gobbled up and will no longer be around to bother anyone. Plants provide a huge NEGATIVE feedback in response to increases in atmospheric CO2

Every green plant around us is made out of carbon dioxide that the plant has grabbed out of the atmosphere. That the plant can get its carbon from such a trace gas is one of the miracles of life. It admittedly uses the huge power of the sun to accomplish such a vast filtrative task but the fact that a dumb plant can harness the power of the sun so effectively is also a wonder. We live on a rather improbable planet. If a science fiction writer elsewhere in the universe described a world like ours he might well be ridiculed for making up such an implausible tale.

Greenies are the sand in the gears of modern civilization -- and they intend to be.

The Greenie message is entirely emotional and devoid of all logic. They say that polar ice will melt and cause a big sea-level rise. Yet 91% of the world's glacial ice is in Antarctica, where the average temperature is around minus 40 degrees Celsius. The melting point of ice is zero degrees. So for the ice to melt on any scale the Antarctic temperature would need to rise by around 40 degrees, which NOBODY is predicting. The median Greenie prediction is about 4 degrees. So where is the huge sea level rise going to come from? Mars? And the North polar area is mostly sea ice and melting sea ice does not raise the sea level at all. Yet Warmists constantly hail any sign of Arctic melting. That the melting of floating ice does not raise the water level is known as Archimedes' principle. Archimedes demonstrated it around 2,500 years ago. That Warmists have not yet caught up with that must be just about the most inspissated ignorance imaginable. The whole Warmist scare defies the most basic physics. Yet at the opening of 2011 we find the following unashamed lying by James Hansen: "We will lose all the ice in the polar ice cap in a couple of decades". Sadly, what the Vulgate says in John 1:5 is still only very partially true: "Lux in tenebris lucet". There is still much darkness in the minds of men.

The repeated refusal of Warmist "scientists" to make their raw data available to critics is such a breach of scientific protocol that it amounts to a confession in itself. Note, for instance Phil Jones' Feb 21, 2005 response to Warwick Hughes' request for his raw climate data: "We have 25 years or so invested in the work. Why should I make the data available to you, when your aim is to try and find something wrong with it?" Looking for things that might be wrong with a given conclusion is of course central to science. But Warmism cannot survive such scrutiny. So even after "Climategate", the secrecy goes on.

Most Greenie causes are at best distractions from real environmental concerns (such as land degradation) and are more motivated by a hatred of people than by any care for the environment

Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists

‘Global warming’ has become the grand political narrative of the age, replacing Marxism as a dominant force for controlling liberty and human choices. -- Prof. P. Stott

The modern environmental movement arose out of the wreckage of the New Left. They call themselves Green because they're too yellow to admit they're really Reds. So Lenin's birthday was chosen to be the date of Earth Day. Even a moderate politician like Al Gore has been clear as to what is needed. In "Earth in the Balance", he wrote that saving the planet would require a "wrenching transformation of society".

For centuries there was a scientific consensus which said that fire was explained by the release of an invisible element called phlogiston. That theory is universally ridiculed today. Global warming is the new phlogiston. Though, now that we know how deliberate the hoax has been, it might be more accurate to call global warming the New Piltdown Man. The Piltdown hoax took 40 years to unwind. I wonder....

Motives: Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is generally to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Policies: The only underlying theme that makes sense of all Greenie policies is hatred of people. Hatred of other people has been a Greenie theme from way back. In a report titled "The First Global Revolution" (1991, p. 104) published by the "Club of Rome", a Greenie panic outfit, we find the following statement: "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill.... All these dangers are caused by human intervention... The real enemy, then, is humanity itself." See here for many more examples of prominent Greenies saying how much and how furiously they hate you.

After fighting a 70 year war to destroy red communism we face another life-or-death struggle in the 21st century against green communism.

The conventional wisdom of the day is often spectacularly wrong. The most popular and successful opera of all time is undoubtedly "Carmen" by Georges Bizet. Yet it was much criticized when first performed and the unfortunate Bizet died believing that it was a flop. Similarly, when the most iconic piece of 20th century music was first performed in 1913-- Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" -- half the audience walked out. Those of us who defy the conventional wisdom about climate are actually better off than that. Unlike Bizet and Stravinsky in 1913, we KNOW that we will eventually be vindicated -- because all that supports Warmism is a crumbling edifice of guesswork ("models").

Al Gore won a political prize for an alleged work of science. That rather speaks for itself, doesn't it?

Jim Hansen and his twin

Getting rich and famous through alarmism: Al Gore is well-known but note also James Hansen. He has for decades been a senior, presumably well-paid, employee at NASA. In 2001 he was the recipient of a $250,000 Heinz Award. In 2007 Time magazine designated him a Hero of the Environment. That same year he pocketed one-third of a $1 million Dan David Prize. In 2008, the American Association for the Advancement of Science presented him with its Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award. In 2010 he landed a $100,000 Sophie Prize. He pulled in a total of $1.2 million in 2010. Not bad for a government bureaucrat.

See the original global Warmist in action here: "The icecaps are melting and all world is drowning to wash away the sin"

I am not a global warming skeptic nor am I a global warming denier. I am a global warming atheist. I don't believe one bit of it. That the earth's climate changes is undeniable. Only ignoramuses believe that climate stability is normal. But I see NO evidence to say that mankind has had anything to do with any of the changes observed -- and much evidence against that claim.

Seeing that we are all made of carbon, the time will come when people will look back on the carbon phobia of the early 21st century as too incredible to be believed

Meanwhile, however, let me venture a tentative prophecy. Prophecies are almost always wrong but here goes: Given the common hatred of carbon (Warmists) and salt (Food freaks) and given the fact that we are all made of carbon, salt, water and calcium (with a few additives), I am going to prophecy that at some time in the future a hatred of nitrogen will emerge. Why? Because most of the air that we breathe is nitrogen. We live at the bottom of a nitrogen sea. Logical to hate nitrogen? NO. But probable: Maybe. The Green/Left is mad enough. After all, nitrogen is a CHEMICAL -- and we can't have that!

The intellectual Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) must have foreseen Global Warmism. He said: "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."

The Holy Grail for most scientists is not truth but research grants. And the global warming scare has produced a huge downpour of money for research. Any mystery why so many scientists claim some belief in global warming?

For many people, global warming seems to have taken the place of "The Jews" -- a convenient but false explanation for any disliked event. Prof. Brignell has some examples.

Global warming skeptics are real party-poopers. It's so wonderful to believe that you have a mission to save the world.

There is an "ascetic instinct" (or perhaps a "survivalist instinct") in many people that causes them to delight in going without material comforts. Monasteries and nunneries were once full of such people -- with the Byzantine stylites perhaps the most striking example. Many Greenies (other than Al Gore and his Hollywood pals) have that instinct too but in the absence of strong orthodox religious committments they have to convince themselves that the world NEEDS them to live in an ascetic way. So their personal emotional needs lead them to press on us all a delusional belief that the planet needs "saving".

The claim that oil is a fossil fuel is another great myth and folly of the age. They are now finding oil at around seven MILES beneath the sea bed -- which is incomparably further down than any known fossil. The abiotic oil theory is not as yet well enough developed to generate useful predictions but that is also true of fossil fuel theory

Medieval Warm Period: Recent climatological data assembled from around the world using different proxies attest to the presence of both the MWP and the LIA in the following locations: the Sargasso Sea, West Africa, Kenya, Peru, Japan, Tasmania, South Africa, Idaho, Argentina, and California. These events were clearly world-wide and in most locations the peak temperatures during the MWP were higher than current temperatures.

Both radioactive and stable carbon isotopes show that the real atmospheric CO2 residence time (lifetime) is only about 5 years, and that the amount of fossil-fuel CO2 in the atmosphere is
maximum 4%.

Green/Left denial of the facts explained: "Rejection lies in this, that when the light came into the world men preferred darkness to light; preferred it, because their doings were evil. Anyone who acts shamefully hates the light, will not come into the light, for fear that his doings will be found out. Whereas the man whose life is true comes to the light" John 3:19-21 (Knox)

Against the long history of huge temperature variation in the earth's climate (ice ages etc.), the .6 of one degree average rise reported by the U.N. "experts" for the entire 20th century (a rise so small that you would not be able to detect such a difference personally without instruments) shows, if anything, that the 20th century was a time of exceptional temperature stability.

Recent NASA figures tell us that there was NO warming trend in the USA during the 20th century. If global warming is occurring, how come it forgot the USA?

Warmists say that the revised NASA figures do not matter because they cover only the USA -- and the rest of the world is warming nicely. But it is not. There has NEVER been any evidence that the Southern hemisphere is warming. See here. So the warming pattern sure is looking moth-eaten.

The latest scare is the possible effect of extra CO2 on the world’s oceans, because more CO2 lowers the pH of seawater. While it is claimed that this makes the water more acidic, this is misleading. Since seawater has a pH around 8.1, it will take an awful lot of CO2 it to even make the water neutral (pH=7), let alone acidic (pH less than 7).

In fact, ocean acidification is a scientific impossibility. Henry's Law mandates that warming oceans will outgas CO2 to the atmosphere (as the UN's own documents predict it will), making the oceans less acid. Also, more CO2 would increase calcification rates. No comprehensive, reliable measurement of worldwide oceanic acid/base balance has ever been carried out: therefore, there is no observational basis for the computer models' guess that acidification of 0.1 pH units has occurred in recent decades.

The chaos theory people have told us for years that the air movement from a single butterfly's wing in Brazil can cause an unforeseen change in our weather here. Now we are told that climate experts can "model" the input of zillions of such incalculable variables over periods of decades to accurately forecast global warming 50 years hence. Give us all a break!

Scientists have politics too -- sometimes extreme politics. Read this: "This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism... I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child." -- Albert Einstein

The Lockwood & Froehlich paper was designed to rebut Durkin's "Great Global Warming Swindle" film. It is a rather confused paper -- acknowledging yet failing to account fully for the damping effect of the oceans, for instance -- but it is nonetheless valuable to climate atheists. The concession from a Greenie source that fluctuations in the output of the sun have driven climate change for all but the last 20 years (See the first sentence of the paper) really is invaluable. And the basic fact presented in the paper -- that solar output has in general been on the downturn in recent years -- is also amusing to see. Surely even a crazed Greenie mind must see that the sun's influence has not stopped and that reduced solar output will soon start COOLING the earth! Unprecedented July 2007 cold weather throughout the Southern hemisphere might even have been the first sign that the cooling is happening. And the fact that warming plateaued in 1998 is also a good sign that we are moving into a cooling phase. As is so often the case, the Greenies have got the danger exactly backwards. See my post of 7.14.07 and very detailed critiques here and here and here for more on the Lockwood paper and its weaknesses.

As the Greenies are now learning, even strong statistical correlations may disappear if a longer time series is used. A remarkable example from Sociology:"The modern literature on hate crimes began with a remarkable 1933 book by Arthur Raper titled The Tragedy of Lynching. Raper assembled data on the number of lynchings each year in the South and on the price of an acre’s yield of cotton. He calculated the correla­tion coefficient between the two series at –0.532. In other words, when the economy was doing well, the number of lynchings was lower.... In 2001, Donald Green, Laurence McFalls, and Jennifer Smith published a paper that demolished the alleged connection between economic condi­tions and lynchings in Raper’s data. Raper had the misfortune of stopping his anal­ysis in 1929. After the Great Depression hit, the price of cotton plummeted and economic condi­tions deteriorated, yet lynchings continued to fall. The correlation disappeared altogether when more years of data were added." So we must be sure to base our conclusions on ALL the data. In the Greenie case, the correlation between CO2 rise and global temperature rise stopped in 1998 -- but that could have been foreseen if measurements taken in the first half of the 20th century had been considered.

Greenie-approved sources of electricity (windmills and solar cells) require heavy government subsidies to be competitive with normal electricity generators so a Dutch word for Greenie power seems graphic to me: "subsidieslurpers" (subsidy gobblers)

Many newspaper articles are reproduced in full on this blog despite copyright claims attached to them. I believe that such reproductions here are protected by the "fair use" provisions of copyright law. Fair use is a legal doctrine that recognises that the monopoly rights protected by copyright laws are not absolute. The doctrine holds that, when someone uses a creative work in way that does not hurt the market for the original work and advances a public purpose - such as education or scholarship - it might be considered "fair" and not infringing.

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here .....